Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reiterated plans to build its first 450mm (18-inch) pilot production lines, which will offer FinFET transistor technology at 10nm and 7nm nodes, in 2016-17.

TSMC also hopes to adopt extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to make 10nm chips, with equipment move-in slated for the end of 2017.

JK Wang, VP of operations for 300mm fabs for TSMC, indicated that equipment suppliers were previously hesitant about pouring cash into fab tools for 18-inch wafer manufacturing. However, the industry is now aware of the upcoming transition to 18-inch wafers, Wang said.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip maker by revenue, said Tuesday its board approved the company's plan to issue up to 45 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1.50 billion) worth of unsecured corporate bonds.
Proceeds from the bond sale will go to funding capacity expansion, the company said.

However, TSMC will not ditch 28nm anytime soon. In fact, it is still expanding 28nm capacity and it hopes to increase capacity to 100,000 300mm wafers by the end of the year. Chang said TSMC will expand its 28nm capacity threefold in 2013 over 2012.

Uh, stop using inches.... it's millimeters and should only be in millimeters!

Note, Intel projects to have 450mm waters in production in 2015.

TSMC is the world's largest contract chip maker. I don't understand why every thread on OCN has to be about intel.

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Although TSMC offers a variety of wafer product-lines (high-voltage, mixed-signal, analog), TSMC is best known for its logic chip product line. Various fabless high-tech companies such as Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, Qualcomm, Advanced Micro Devices, Altera, Broadcom, Conexant, Marvell, NVIDIA, Allwinner and VIA are customers of TSMC. Some fab-owning companies like Intel also outsource some production to TSMC. At least one semiconductor company, LSI, re-sells TSMC wafers through its ASIC design services and design IP-portfolio. wiki

Also, TSMC has started making Apple A6X chips on a trial base since Samsung fallout.

TSMC is the world's largest contract chip maker. I don't understand why every thread on OCN has to be about intel.
Also, TSMC has started making Apple A6X chips on a trial base since Samsung fallout.

Intel's the advance chip maker though.... and this is about advancing of the the process....

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Originally Posted by Art Vanelay

No, everything should be done in metres using scientific notation. 4.5e-1 m.

...or parsecs. Who doesn't love parsecs? 1.45835068e-17 pc.

My issue is that it's literally a 300mm wafer.... not about 300mm, it is 300mm. The "300mm" is not just a specification or characteristic. The "300mm" is the necessary descriptive part of the name much like "foot long hot dog" or "3/16" hex nut".